‘Girls Who Swear’

Here’s a preview of my new album.

https://soundcloud.com/philip-martin/sets/girls-who-swear/s-zgYsN8PyuSr

Sam Shepard

I could be your footman or your whore

I could be your meteor of war

I could be your beginning or your end

I could be anything except your friend

Do you want me to be Sam goddamn Shepard for you?

Cause I can damn sure be Sam goddamn Shepard for you.

Do you want it to be 1972, do you wanna hang out with my retinue? (with the Wrecking Crew?)

Cause I can damn sure be Sam goddamn Shepard for you.

I could be your answer or retort

I could be your court of last resort

I could be your confessor or your priest

I could be the lover you like least

I could be your victim or your prey

I could be some half-assed lousy lay

I could be your sunlight of your truth

I could be just one night in your youth

I don’t have a history or past

I don’t believe in love that’s made to last

I could be your first or eighty-eighth

I could be the restorer of your faith

I could be your daddy’s big, big boot

I could be your mama’s fascist brute

Mayor’s Brother

Got a dollar I can borrow?

I'll pay you back real soon.

Just need a ticket to tomorrow.

I'm a little short this afternoon.

I was head out to mama’s

when somebody jacked my whip

I got caught up in her dramas

And I lost my scholarship

Well, I am the mayor’s brother

I got friends on the inside

I got sideways with the others

Now I need a place to hide

The sun was blaring like a siren

Putting cancer in my eyes

I never heard the baby’s cryin’

Until I crossed the Bridge of Sighs

I thought about returniung

Down the barrel of a gun

I could smell the incense burning

And the demon told me run

A freighted set of obligations

I'm afraid I'm gonna break

I ain't taking any comfort

in the art for art's sake

Like a freighted net scraping bottom

in a cold dark lake

I'm an asymptomatic

carrier of heartbreak ...

When the Night Drinks Wine (song for Ellis)

(after Rumi)

When the Night drinks wine

Sometimes her sorrow shows

She says the Moon is a faithless lover

‘Cause he comes and goes

She’s jealous of the Day,

With her constant Sun,

Shedding light, warmth and satisfaction

Over everyone ....

But then Day gets bored

And prays for clouds and rain

A reprieve from the spotlight

To camouflage her pain

Some say the road is long

Some say it never ends

Some say it’s spinning like a mandala

Back where it begins

The Night is vast and wide

And deeper than the sea

And though it holds a hundred billion suns

It can feel empty

We are but motes of dust

Lost in infinity

But every little human heart

Has the capacity

 

To hold the universe

Encompass Day and Night

My neighbor told me love was limitless

And I God I hope he’s right

Some say the night is long

Some say it never ends

If we’re spinning like a mandala 

You cantor forget your friends

So when the Night drinks wine

Remember all the days

When the moon shining like a mirror

And know it’s just a phase

Girls Who Swear

Long about 200,000 years ago

give or take a century

A caveman ridin’ in his Cadillac

cracked the mystery

He said ‘Some like girls with damn deep eyes

and yards of auburn hair;

there’s assholes who infantilize,

but I like girls who swear’

’Cause girls who swear don’t take no guff

or wear the frilly pink underwear

They’re not available for stupid stuff

like arranging your child care

Girls who swear are all grown up

They don’t care about your car

Girls who swear don’t give a flyin’ fuck

They like themselves the way they are

’Ol Chuck Berry was a handsome man

Brown-eyed and debonair

’Rounding third he come up with a plan

He wired up the Southern Air

You know he did, he wired up the Southern Air

And maybe it was 1965

It’s all the same to me

A cowboy ridin’ on a dinosaur

Come to Memphis, Tennesee.

He said. ‘Where this Elvis boy y’all been talking about?

I want to check his masculinity.

’Cause some boys they like other boys,

And some boys they like me,

You know they do,

Some boys they like me

Y’all can go on and be what you wanna be

Don’t pick my pocket or break my leg

If the answer’s ‘No,’ you gotta let it go,

You gotta be too proud to beg

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